People can perceive the depth of an object by a small difference between the image of the object viewed by the right eye and the image of the object viewed by the left eye, thereby recognizing a stereoscopic or three-dimensional (3D) image. This difference is called parallax. Thus, in general, the 3D display technologies create parallax between the viewer's left and right eyes through artificial means, and send the two view images with the parallax to the left eye and the right eye, respectively. After receiving the different images viewed by the left eye and the right eye, the viewer's brain produces the perception of a real 3D object.
With people's evolving understanding of the liquid crystal materials, liquid crystal lenses made of liquid crystal materials are used in a wide range of applications, such as 3D display applications. FIG. 1 shows an existing 2D/3D switchable stereoscopic display apparatus.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional 2D/3D switchable stereoscopic display apparatus includes a display panel 1′ and a liquid crystal lens 2′ provided on the light-emitting side of the display panel 1′. Light emitted from the display panel 1′ passes through the liquid crystal lens 2′ and enters into the viewer's left and right eyes, respectively, to achieve 3D display.
The liquid crystal lens 2′ comprises a first substrate 21′ and a second substrate 22′, disposed in opposite of each other, a liquid crystal layer comprising liquid crystal molecules 23′ and disposed between the first substrate 21′ and the second substrate 22′, and spacers 24′ supporting the thickness of the liquid crystal layer. The spacers are made of transparent materials.
Further, a plurality of first electrodes 25′ are configured on the first substrate 21′, and a second electrode is configured on the second substrate 22′. When the 2D/3D switchable display apparatus is used for 3D display, driving voltages are applied between the plurality of first electrode 25′ and the second electrode to form a plurality of liquid crystal lens units to realize 3D display. When the 2D/3D switchable stereoscopic display apparatus is in the 2D display state, no driving voltages are applied between the plurality of first electrode 25′ and the second electrode. As the light emitted from the display panel 1′ passes through the spacer 24′ and the liquid crystal molecules 23′ surrounding the spacers 24′, because the refractive index difference between the refractive index of the spacers 24′ and the refractive index of the liquid crystal molecules 23′ is relatively large, the light may be refracted at the spacers 24′. Thus, when the viewer is viewing the liquid crystal lens 2′, bright spots or colored spots may appear at the spacer 24′, impacting the viewing effect and comfortableness.
Other conventional existing 3D display apparatus often include a display panel and a liquid crystal lens grating. The display panel includes a plurality of pixels and a black matrix disposed among the plurality of pixels, and the liquid crystal lens grating includes spacers. The positions of the spacers may correspond to the positions of the black matrix in the display panel, but the black matrix often cannot fully cover the spacers. Thus, the bright-spot problem of the spacers may affect the display effect of the display panel.
The disclosed device and method are directed to solve one or more problems set forth above and other problems.